SK Telecom has teamed up with wireless transmission technology vendor Kumu Networks to demonstrate what the companies expect will be an important pre-5G technology.
The companies are using the World IT Show 2015 in Seoul to showcase In Band Full Duplex (IBFD), a technology that promises to overcome one of the key limitations of 4G – the inability to transmit and receive signals at the same time on the same channel.
Current 4G networks are required to operate in either time-division duplex (TDD) or frequency-division duplex (FDD) mode to overcome this limitation.
IBFD has the potential to address this issue by cancelling signal interference in real time, enhancing spectrum efficiency.
SK Telecom and Kumu Networks are using a pre-5G network environment powered by IBFD to showcase a remotely controlled “Robocop.”
The Robocop mirrors human movement without latency while simultaneously transmitting and receiving data to and from a control center in real time. It will be tasked with traffic management at the show.
“SK Telecom’s wirelessly controlled traffic robot is the perfect metaphor for Full Duplex’s role in alleviating wireless traffic jams,” Kumu Networks CEO David Cutrer said.
“We are very excited to work with SK Telecom as they trial and deploy cutting edge In Band Full Duplex applications to boost today’s wireless network capacity and pave the way to 5G.”